DC’s Catwoman has famously been regarded as one of the worst superhero films of all time. There are several reasons why critics and fans absolutely detest the film; ranging from the lack of substance, comic inaccuracy, and specifically, how much it relied on Halle Berry’s looks to carry the film. It is safe to say that the movie is nearly impossible to watch for anyone ever briefly familiar with Selina Kyle’s character.
When a film is famously bad, it gets a little difficult to remember that the quality may not have always been like this. Naturally, when John Brancato, Michael Ferris, and John Rogers were writing the screenplay for the film, they had a completely different vision in mind.
It is concerning just how much the movie changed by the time it was in post-production, setting new lows for the franchise.
The Original Catwoman
Inverse did an in-depth research into exactly what caused the downfall of 2004’s Catwoman, and the findings were quite interesting. Speaking to one of the writers of the original screenplay, John Rogers, it would seem that their original vision for the project completely contrasted with the final product. In an interview, he mentioned that he found the original pitch for the film recently and was surprised at the stark difference.
Rogers revealed that one of the first things that the creators wanted with the movie was that it stay grounded in the reality of the character. Rather than going for outlandish arcs and storytelling themes, they would stick to a simple story that was wrapped up in a complex world.
I actually found the pitch documents in my storage unit the other day. The first line of the pitch document is: “This cannot be a heightened reality, surreal movie, like the Schumacher Batmans. It has to be a grounded crime story.” So my script was much darker and much more violent. It was meant to be sort of a return to this very genre-y, grounded vengeance story. And then we did none of that.
The story they wanted to showcase wasn’t something arcane, being a revenge story full of vengeance and hatred. Since these are fundamental parts of Selina Kyle’s character, it does not seem surprising. Additionally, they wanted to take a darker and more violent route with their film, both elements of her character from the comics.
DC’s Biggest Blunder
Looking at the original plan for Catwoman, the story actually seems quite interesting. Audiences would have quite enjoyed seeing Selina Kyle fight for herself and her past without Batman by her side every step of the way and this would have helped the appeal quite a lot. However, as production designer Bill Brzeski put it, a lot of the movie’s motivations and intentions were lost in translation from screenplay to screen.
I think a lot of that stuff got lost in translation. The people who made the movie were coming from a different place.
Since there are a lot of different elements to filmmaking and many minds are thinking together, ideas can often clash. Where the writers wanted to tell one story, those who were directing and producing the film wanted to tell another, and the studio heads had different ideas. In the clash of all these visions, it is only natural that the movie will be affected in some way or another.
While a lot of films can often survive behind-the-scenes problems, the Halle Berry film didn’t and it ended up becoming one of the worst collateral damages in superhero history.
Catwoman is available for streaming on Netflix.
